Satyajit Ray first copyright owner of the movie ‘Nayak’-Delhi High Court

Delhi High Court declares late Satyajit Ray as the original copyright owner of Nayak screenplay, rejecting plea against novelization publication and?ruled that director Satyajit Ray is the first owner of the copyright to the screenplay he wrote for his 1966 film Nayak , as well as to his son Sandip Ray and the Society for Preservation of Satyajit Ray Archives after his death.

The court emphasized that an author who is hired by a film's producer to write the screenplay must be the first owner of the copyright. One of the finest masters of cinema, Satyajit Ray, passed away in 1992.

Satyajit Ray wrote the screenplay and story for Nayak, making it the second movie he wrote entirely after Kanchenjungha (1962). The judgment is that Satyajit Ray was the initial owner of the copyright under Section 17 of the Copyright Act because he wrote the screenplay for the movie Nayak. Therefore, the claim that the plaintiff owns the copyright to the screenplay for the movie Nayak cannot be recognized and is, as a result, dismissed, said Judge C. Hari Shankar.

The film's producers, RDB and Co., asked the court to grant them an injunction preventing the publishing company HarperCollins from publishing the screenplay as a novel. The Satyajit Ray Society of Artists (SPSRA) and Sandip Ray were given the novelization rights, but Justice Hari Shankar rejected the argument, claiming that this was fully legal and in compliance with copyright laws. RDB and Co. said that RD Bansal, the Karta of RDB & Co., hired Ray to develop the screenplay and helm the movie Nayak.

They claimed that Bhaskar Chattopadhyay's novelization of the script and HarperCollins' subsequent publication of it violated Section 51 of the Copyright Act.

After carefully reviewing the matter, Justice Hari Shankar found that Ray was the original copyright owner because he wrote the screenplay. The court vehemently rejected the claim that the producer automatically owns the screenplay's copyright, finding that it lacked legal support. In light of these conclusions, Justice Hari Shankar concluded that the plaintiff lacked the legal right to ask for an injunction to prevent the defendant from publishing the novelized script.

A 2018 novel by Bhaskar Chattopadhyay that was a novelization of Ray's Nayak screenplay has been sought to be stopped from being published and distributed by HarperCollins by Bansal's family because it violated their copyright.

Justice C. Hari Shankar dismissed the Bansal family's lawsuit, stating that the producer's family lacked the authority to enjoin third parties from novelizing the screenplay. The court stated that there was no question that Satyajit Ray wrote the whole screenplay for the movie and that the producer "contributed no part" to it.

The court ruled that since Ray wrote the screenplay, he was the original owner of the copyright to the work and had the right to novelize it; his son and SPSRA later granted this right to a third party in a legal manner. In light of Satyajit Ray's passing, his son Sandip Ray and SPSRA now own the copyright of the Nayak movie's screenplay. Therefore, Sandip Ray and the SPSRA have the authority to grant the defendant the right to novelize the script, the court found. ?For his "true mastery in the arts of motion pictures and his profound humanism which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers throughout the world," Ray received an honorary Academy Award in 1992.

This decision has important ramifications for copyright ownership in the film business and highlights how crucial it is to respect the rights of the original author during the creative process. The decision emphasizes Satyajit Ray's enduring impact and his priceless contributions to the film industry.